White House Supports Privacy Destroying CISA, Despite Past Promises It Would Not

from the this-is-a-problem dept

In the past, President Obama has threatened to veto any cybersecurity bill that undermines privacy and civil liberties. Of course, people didn't quite believe that was true, and now that we see the final cybersecurity bill, the bastardized CISA has been attached to the "must pass" omnibus spending bill, and clearly is a disaster on privacy issues, what do you think the White House is saying?

Well, they love it, of course:

"We are pleased that the Omnibus includes cybersecurity information sharing legislation," a senior administration official said in an emailed statement. "The President has long called on Congress to pass cybersecurity information sharing legislation that will help the private sector and government share more cyber threat information by providing for targeted liability protections while carefully safeguarding privacy, confidentiality, and civil liberties."

Except, you know, it doesn't actually do that last part.

Filed Under: administration, cisa, cybersecurity, omnibus, omnibus bill, president obama, privacy, white house

Senator Mitch McConnell To Obama: Please, Just Tell Us What Law You Need To Ban Encryption And You'll Get It

from the begging-to-undermine-american-security dept

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has always been a friend of the intelligence community, but he's using the attack in San Bernadino to ramp up the anti-encryption insanity to new levels, practically begging President Obama to tell him what law he wants to ban encryption, and McConnell will help make sure Congress delivers. McConnell's statement was laying out what he thought President Obama should do in response to ISIS, and includes this ridiculous line:

He should tell us what legal authorities he needs to defeat encrypted online communications, and what is needed to reestablish our capture, interrogation, and surveillance capabilities.

"Defeat encrypted online communications"? Is he crazy? We need encrypted online communications to better protect us, and yet McConnell is trying to undermine those communications. He's actively proposing to make us all less safe. And, of course, talking about "reestablishing" our "surveillance capabilities" is about giving the NSA more surveillance powers. McConnell was, of course, the key person who tried to block any attempt at rolling back the NSA's unconstitutional phone records collection program.

Now, we know that President Obama didn't go quite as far as McConnell asked, but he did still push for a more "voluntary" solution -- which may morph into Congress doing something if people don't speak out loudly about what an incredibly dumb idea this is.

Filed Under: congress, encryption, going dark, mitch mcconnell, president obama

No Matter What You Think Of Gun Control, Relying On The No Fly List For Anything Is Monumentally Stupid

from the due-process dept

As you may have noticed, the attacks in San Bernadino last week quickly became seen through the lens of what political point certain people wanted to make. The Democratic party quickly attempted to push for a bizarre type of gun control, barring people on the "no fly list" from buying guns. It's one of those things that sounds good if you have no real knowledge about what's going on. But it's still being pushed because it sounds like a sensible thing at first glance: why, if someone is a potential terrorist threat, they think, they probably shouldn't be able to buy guns. Hell, here's how President Obama himself put it last night in his big speech about terrorism (and gun control) in the wake of the attacks:

Now, here at home, we have to work together to address the challenge. There are several steps that Congress should take right away. To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semiautomatic weapon? This is a matter of national security.

Well, here's the problem: being on the "no fly list" does not mean you're a terrorist suspect. For the President to equate the two is not just wrong, it's disgraceful. First of all, there are two separate lists: the no fly list and the "terrorist screening database." There is overlap between the two lists, but they are not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.

Second, there is no due process whatsoever involved in putting people on the no fly list. As we noted just last year, a court found that the lack of any legitimate way of getting off the no fly list was unconstitutional. Another case involved an FBI agent checking the wrong box, which put a woman on the no fly list, and kept her out of the country for a decade. In another case, a court had to force the DOJ to admit to people they were on the no fly list, because it refused to even let them know before. While the DOJ finally changed this policy a few months ago, the lack of due process is ridiculously concerning.

Then... there's this: Leaks to the Intercept revealed that the "process" by which people are put on either the no fly list or the terrorist watch list basically involves hunches, and revelations from just a few months ago show that DHS still uses flim flam pseudo science to put people on the list based on hunches that the government laughably calls "predictive judgment," but which experts have said has no scientific basis whatsoever.

If you want to understand how incredibly wrong this proposal is, you just need to replace "buy guns" with something else, like "the right to assemble" or "the right to use the internet." It's easy to say: "What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to use the internet?" But then you remember that these aren't actual suspects -- they're just people put on a list by law enforcement with no thorough process, let alone due process to defend themselves or to get off the list. And, of course, being a "suspect" doesn't mean you're guilty. Innocent until proven guilty used to actually mean something.

Thankfully, at least some are now recognizing this with Republicans suddenly arguing that they don't like this gun control policy because the no fly list is a joke. Here's presidential candidate Marco Rubio:

“These are everyday Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism, they wind up on the no-fly list, there’s no due process or any way to get your name removed from it in a timely fashion, and now they’re having their Second Amendment rights being impeded upon.... The majority of the people on the no-fly list are often times people that just basically have the same name as somebody else who doesn’t belong on the no-fly list.... Sometimes you’re only on that list because the FBI wants to talk to you about someone you know, not because you’re a suspect."

He's not wrong per se, but note that he's only concerned about the potential Second Amendment impact of this should that amendment move forward (which it won't) -- and not about the impact of all those innocent people whose lives are totally disrupted by being on the list.

And here's House Speaker Paul Ryan suddenly concerned about due process violations with the no fly list -- but again, showing no interest in actually doing anything about it, other than using it to block gun control:

“People have due process rights in this country,” Republican House speaker Paul Ryan said in explaining his party’s opposition to the vote, apparently with a straight face. He went on to say there shouldn’t be a rush to pass legislation at the risk of “infringing upon the rights of law-abiding citizens...”

Again, sure. But if the no fly list is a due process nightmare, why is it still around? Why aren't Rubio and Ryan looking to end that? And why have both of them supported all sorts of other legislation that infringes upon the 4th Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens?

It's great that some folks are suddenly aware of the fact that the no fly list is an unconstitutional, due process nightmare -- but focusing on the whole gun control aspect of it is pretty ridiculous. The no fly list is a problem on its own. It should be done away with. If people want gun control, focus on gun control, not on expanding the mess that is the no fly list. If people don't want gun control, go ahead and make that argument. But don't suddenly point to the problems of the no fly list and not do anything about them except block the gun control measure.

Filed Under: due process, gun control, marco rubio, no fly, no fly list, paul ryan, president obama, terrorist watch list

President Obama Hints At Asking Silicon Valley To Magically Block Terrorists From Using Tech Products

from the not-good dept

As you probably know, last night President Obama gave a big address from the Oval Office about what he plans to do about ISIS, along with dealing with the threat of lone wolf and other attacks at home. Buried deep within (in fact, I missed it the first time through) was a nod towards the idea of pushing Silicon Valley to magically undermine encryption. Here's the entirety of what he said on the subject:

I will urge high tech and law enforcement leaders to make it harder to use technology to escape from justice.

That seems like a simple sentence, but it's loaded with meaning, and most of it's not good. As we've noted over and over again, the last refuge of those looking to undermine encryption is to bring up the idea of "if only Silicon Valley techies and law enforcement could get together, surely they could come up with some magic golden key. But that's clueless, because what they're asking for is impossible. This isn't something that's "difficult" -- it's impossible. You can't make a backdoored encryption system that doesn't make everyone vulnerable and less safe.

And, yes, while you can say he doesn't specifically say "encryption" here, the use of the phrase "technology to escape from justice" clearly implies encryption. Of course, as we've noted time and time again, the hand-wringing over encryption is totally overblown. Every time we look at terrorist attacks, they seem to do plenty of planning out in the open. And, even when encryption is used, law enforcement and the intelligence community have admitted that either the people often mess up, making them trackable, or they leave other trails.

Besides, what changes does President Obama think technology needs to stop a husband and wife from plotting at home to shoot up an office holiday party?

The whole thing is ridiculous -- and perhaps the only redeeming thing is that he didn't say he was going to ask Congress for a law on this, but rather just put pressure on US tech companies. Unfortunately, as we've seen in the past, sometimes that pressure can be intense and almost impossible to refuse. The President's statement today just undermined a whole bunch of the US tech industry's claims towards keeping information private. He just handed a gift to foreign companies.

Filed Under: encryption, going dark, gun control, isis, president obama, terrorists

Fast Track Moves Forward And Now The Fight Is On TPP Directly

from the well-that-sucks dept

As noted last week, Congress played some games last week and was able to move forward on fast track authority (Trade Promotion Authority -- or TPA) in the House by decoupling it from Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). Before that, everyone had said that TPA couldn't move forward in the Senate without TAA, but it did move forward with exactly 60 votes (the minimum it needed). That means fast track is going to the President's desk, and of course he'll sign it. Previously, the President had promised that he wouldn't sign TPA without TAA, so I'm still at a loss as to how that's happening, since the House hasn't approved TAA yet and theoretically could block Obama from signing TPA by rejecting TAA -- if (and it's a big if) President Obama actually stands by that promise. However, the way everyone's talking about this, it seems pretty clear that Congress is just going to cave, and will pass TAA as well.

And, effectively, that means this is a done deal. As bizarre as it sounds, Republicans in Congress (with the help of a small group of Democrats) have given up their own Constitutional powers to regulate international commerce, and handed it to the President of an opposing party, while the majority of Democrats fought to keep their own President (and the next President...) from having such powers.

In the end, this means that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is pretty much a done deal. Negotiators have more or less said that it's ready to go, but thanks to having fast track, our own Congress will not be able to call out any of the problems in the agreement -- or ask for any changes. It can only vote thumbs up or thumbs down on the agreement. And that means that the very dangerous corporate giveaways on intellectual property laws -- locking us into extended copyrights, weakening the ability to make and sell cheap drugs -- and corporate sovereignty provisions -- allowing companies to sue for taxpayer funds over "lost profits" due to regulatory changes, is about to expand massively.

At this point, about the only way I can see that the TPP doesn't make it across the finish line is if there's a huge public outcry, making it totally toxic to Congress, but that seems like a very big long shot. So, thanks, Congress, for selling out the American public to a few big corporations today. It's going to do real harm, and you'll pretend you didn't realize that down the road. What a sham.

Filed Under: congress, corporate sovereignty, fast track, isds, president obama, taa, tpa, tpp, trade agreements

President Obama Rolls Back Some Police Militarization... Police Flip Out

from the really-now? dept

We've had a bunch of stories lately about the increase in militarized police and what a ridiculous and dangerous idea it is. As we've discussed in the past, much of this came from the Defense Department and its 1033 program, which takes decommissioned military equipment and gives it to police. This results in bizarre situations like the LA School District police having a bunch of grenade launchers. The program is somewhat infamous for its lack of rules, transparency and oversight.

So it was great to see President Obama this week issue an executive order that greatly scales back the program. You'll be happy to know that no future LA School Districts will get grenade launchers (though, to be fair, after bad publicity, the school district did give the ones it had received back):

Grenade launchers, bayonets, tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and vehicles, firearms and ammunition of .50-caliber or higher will no longer be provided to state and local police agencies by the federal government under Obama's order.

[....]

In addition to the prohibitions in his order, Obama also is placing a longer list of military equipment under tighter control, including wheeled armored vehicles like Humvees, manned aircraft, drones, specialized firearms, explosives, battering rams and riot batons, helmets and shields. Starting in October, police will have to get approval from their city council, mayor or some other local governing body to obtain such equipment, provide a persuasive explanation of why it is needed and have more training and data collection on its use.

For police departments that already have the now "banned" items, they will have to be returned. You'll notice that one of the biggest symbols that people point to of overly-militarized police -- the MRAP -- is not included in the banned list. There are some other limitations here as well. And a big one, as the guy who literally wrote the book on militarized police, Radley Balko, notes: the 1033 program is no longer the biggest supplier of such things to police:

Since 2003, for example, the Department of Homeland Security has been giving grants to police departments around the country to purchase new military-grade gear. That program now dwarfs the 1033 Program. It has also given rise to a cottage industry of companies that build gear in exchange for those DHS checks. Those companies now have a significant lobbying presence in Washington. I suspect that presence will now only grow stronger. So if the Obama administration really wants to roll back police militarization, this program needs reform, too.

Still, as Balko also notes, there is still a lot of importance in the symbolism of the move made this week:

From what has been reported, this new initiative addresses these concerns as well and seems to indicate that the Obama administration understands and appreciates that the symbolic component of police militarization is just as important as the practical component. I’m uncomfortable with any military vehicles going to local police. Free societies tend to draw a clear line between cops and soldiers. Blurring that line indicates a failure to appreciate its importance. But this initiative is moving toward reestablishing that line, not moving it or further blurring it. Federal programs are pretty difficult to disband, so a blanket ban was probably never in the cards. Conditioning the acceptance of this gear on increased transparency, accountability and a move toward community policing seems like a good compromise. We’ll either get less use of this military-issued equipment, or we’ll get more and better information about how it’s used. Either outcome is progress.

Balko gives some additional (fantastic) background on why President Obama made the announcement in Camden, New Jersey -- a city that had serious problems between the local police and the community, and basically figured out a way to restart from scratch (closing down the local police force and letting the county take over) while creating a much stronger community tie between police and the community, rather than the all-too-common adversarial relationship that has grown up in many places (which is often made worse by the militarization).

Not surprisingly... there are already loud complaints from police representatives, who complain (misleadingly) about how this move puts them all in danger:

The nation’s largest police union is fighting back against a White House plan to restrict local police forces’ ability to acquire military-style gear, accusing President Barack Obama’s task force of politicizing officers’ safety.

Other police are hilariously arguing that this move will actually increase military presence, because police without this equipment will no longer be able to contain crowds, and thus the National Guard will have to be called in more frequently. Of course, all of that seems to assume that violent protests are the norm, rather than a semi-rare occurrence -- and, it also ignores how militarized police often seem to exacerbate such situations, rather than calm them down.

This move doesn't end the militarization of police, but it does take a step in the right direction. As Balko notes, if we believe in a free society, we shouldn't have militarized police. This move is an important step up.

Filed Under: 1033, barack obama, police militarization, president obama

President Obama Demands Critics Tell Him What's Wrong With TPP; Of Course We Can't Do That Because He Won't Show Us The Agreement

from the most-transparent-administration-in-history dept

President Obama is apparently quite annoyed by the fact that his own party is basically pushing against his "big trade deals" (that are not really about trade). Senator Elizabeth Warren has been pretty aggressive in trashing the TPP agreement, highlighting the fact that the agreement is still secret (other than the bits leaked by Wikileaks). In response, President Obama came out swinging against the critics of TPP arguing that "they don't know what they're talking about."

He insists that it's unfair to compare TPP to NAFTA because they're different deals:

“You need to tell me what’s wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago.”

Well, Mr. President, I would love to do that, but I can't because you and your USTR haven't released the damn text. It takes an insane lack of self-awareness for the guy who once declared his administration "the most transparent in history" to demand people tell him what's wrong with his trade agreement, when that agreement is kept entirely secret.

Furthermore, multiple experts concerning things like the corporate sovereignty ISDS provisions and the intellectual property chapters have gone into great detail as to why the leaked versions have problems. They're not complaining about NAFTA. They're actually complaining about the latest drafts -- but the USTR won't acknowledge them because they're talking about leaked versions.

In fact, the only real complaints I've seen relating to NAFTA concern the fact that the government says one thing about these big agreements, but the reality is something different.

Of course, he attacks the fact that people are complaining about the secrecy as well, by arguing (misleadingly) that the deal is not at all secret:

“The one that gets on my nerves the most is the notion that this is a ‘secret’ deal,” Obama said. “Every single one of the critics who I hear saying, ‘this is a secret deal,’ or send out emails to their fundraising base saying they’re working to prevent this secret deal, can walk over today and read the text of the agreement. There’s nothing secret about it.”

I'm a critic. I can't walk over today and read the text of the agreement. Obviously, President Obama is only talking about elected members of Congress. But that's not what they're complaining about. They're complaining about the fact that the American public cannot see the text of the document or discuss the specifics of what's in there. And that's absolutely true.

And even the fact that members of Congress can actually see the document is tremendously misleading. Yes, members of Congress are allowed to walk over to the USTR and see a copy of the latest text. But they're not allowed to take any notes, make any copies or bring any of their staff members. In other words, they can only read the document and keep what they remember in their heads. And they can't have their staff members -- the folks who often really understand the details -- there to explain what's really going on.

And it all comes back to the point that Senator Warren has been making for a long time: that former USTR Ron Kirk has admitted that a big reason why they keep the document secret is that when they tried being more transparent in the past, the agreement failed. As Warren says, if being transparent with the American public means the agreement will fail, then the problem is with the agreement, not the public.

“When I keep on hearing people repeating this notion that it’s ‘secret,’ I gotta say, it’s dishonest,” Obama continued. “And it’s concerning when I see friends of mine resorting to these kinds of tactics.”

Here's a little test: can we see the current TPP documents today? No? Then it's secret. Claiming otherwise is what's dishonest.

Filed Under: barack obama, elizabeth warren, president obama, secrecy, tpp, transparency, ustr

Jeb Bush Compliments Obama For Continuing And Expanding His Brother's War On Terror

from the HOT-THREE-WAY-SURVEILLANCE-ACTION! dept

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally…

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty…

It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

George Washington's Farewell Address, 1789

Not for nothing did Washington warn against the formation of political parties. In this country, bipartisan support can occasionally still be found for the innovative or the innocuous, but for very little else. Not that the parties are really that different. A lot of partisan opposition is predicated on nothing more than the "wrong" party pushing the legislation. There are sharp divides in terms of social programs and issues, but when it comes to funding the military, intelligence agencies and law enforcement, there's very little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.

But the illusion of disparity still exists, even in these issues, and even when many on both sides are receiving similar funding from interested parties. So, it's a bit odd to hear a leading figure of one political party publicly praise the leader of another. Jeb Bush did just that, recently. He managed to toss President Obama a thumbs-up for one set of policy decisions.

Medved: If you were to look back at the last seven years, almost, what has been the best part of the Obama administration?

Jeb Bush: I would say the best part of the Obama administration would be his continuance of the protections of the homeland using the big metadata programs, the NSA being enhanced. Advancing this — even though he never defends it, even though he never openly admits it, there has been a continuation of a very important service, which is the first obligation, I think of our national government is to keep us safe. And the technologies that now can be applied to make that so, while protecting civil liberties are there. And he’s not abandoned them, even though there was some indication that he might.

Of course, he would say that. After all, Obama's approach to this area has been roughly the same as his brother's, George W. Bush. The 9/11 attacks opened the door for another endless war and all the government land grabs that went with it. Obama's tenure has only expanded on Bush's groundwork. There have been reforms mooted, but they're reforms Obama would never have considered if it hadn't been for Snowden's leaks. The reforms are mostly cosmetic and concentrate far too much on a program that even some intelligence officials have admitted is close to useless: the bulk phone metadata collections.

As Glenn Greenwald points out at The Intercept, even the farthest right of the Republican party have had generally nice things to say about his foreign policy decisions, seeing as they're the sort of things you'd normally expect the more-hawkish Red Staters to deploy: extrajudicial drone killings, indefinite detention and other areas where civil liberties have taken a back seat to national security.

If there's any place our government remains (mostly) united, it's the War on Terror. Government figures love government power and nothing makes the State "healthier" than a good, long war. Jeb Bush's by-proxy approval of his brother's programs isn't going to hurt his presidential chances with much of the party faithful. He might steer those concerned by the unchecked growth of the surveillance state towards his competition, however, what with Rand Paul promising to kill off the NSA's domestic surveillance programs shortly after delivering his inaugural address -- a promise I like in principal but am much less enamored with in terms of practicality.

In short, Jeb Bush's compliments are nothing more than a government figure telling the world that he likes government power. And the more it gets, the happier he'll be.

Filed Under: barack obama, jeb bush, metadata, patriot act, president obama, section 215, surveillance

President Obama Signs Executive Order Saying That Now He's Going To Be Really Mad If He Catches Someone Cyberattacking Us

from the oh-come-on dept

This, apparently, is not an April Fool's joke. This morning, President Obama signed an executive order [pdf] allowing the White House to issue sanctions on those "engaging in significant malicious cyber-enabled activities." I'm sure the Chinese state hackers behind the Github DDoS are shaking in their boots.

To make this work, the President officially declared foreign hacking to be a "national emergency" (no, really) and basically said that if the government decides that some foreign person is doing a bit too much hacking, the US government can basically do all sorts of bad stuff to them, like seize anything they have in the US and block them from coming to the US. Because that won't be abused at all.

Look, everyone agrees that there's a lot of online hacking and computer attacks going on. So much of what we do in the world has moved online, so of course that's going to be a target. But giving a general "ARRRRRGGH! HACKING BAD! WHITE HOUSE MAD!" executive order seems incredibly pointless and counterproductive. It seems like yet another example of politicians feeling the need to do something because there's a problem -- but not having any good ideas on what to actually do that will help solve the problem. So they just do something to say they did something, never mind how toothless it is -- or (more importantly) how the broad and vague definitions set forth in the "something" they do can (and will) be used in the future against perfectly reasonable actions and actors.

It's stories like these that make actual computer security folks shake their heads in confusion at politicians. You don't solve cybersecurity issues with vague executive orders. You do it with better security practices (and not undermining those practices with backdoors and stockpiling zero days).

Filed Under: cybersecurity, executive order, national emergency, president obama, sanctions, white house

President Obama Complains To China About Demanding Backdoors To Encryption... As His Administration Demands The Same Thing

from the irony dept

Back in January, we pointed out that just after US and EU law enforcement officials started freaking out about mobile encryption and demanding backdoors, that China was also saying that it wanted to require backdoors for itself in encrypted products. Now, President Obama claims he's upset about this, saying that he's spoken directly with China's President Xi Jinping about it:

In an interview with Reuters, Obama said he was concerned about Beijing's plans for a far-reaching counterterrorism law that would require technology firms to hand over encryption keys, the passcodes that help protect data, and install security "backdoors" in their systems to give Chinese authorities surveillance access.

"This is something that I’ve raised directly with President Xi," Obama said. "We have made it very clear to them that this is something they are going to have to change if they are to do business with the United States."

This comes right after the US Trade Rep Michael Froman issued a statement criticizing China for doing the same damn thing that the US DOJ is arguing the US should be doing:

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman issued a statement on Thursday criticizing the banking rules, saying they "are not about security – they are about protectionism and favoring Chinese companies".

"The Administration is aggressively working to have China walk back from these troubling regulations," Froman said.

Those claims would sound a hell of a lot stronger if they weren't coming immediately after DOJ officials from Attorney General Eric Holder to FBI Director James Comey had more or less argued for the exact same thing.

Just last week, Yahoo's chief security officer Alex Stamos raised this exact issue with NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers, asking if Rogers thinks it's appropriate for tech companies to build backdoors for other countries if they build them for the US. Rogers ignored the question, just saying "I think we can work our way through this," which is not an answer. And now we're "working our way through this" by having to deal with other countries, such as China, leaping at this opportunity.

And the week before, President Obama himself claimed that he was all for strong encryption, but argued that there were tradeoffs worth discussing, and that some in his administration believed that demanding backdoors made sense to try to stop terrorist attacks. But it's tough to see how he can claim that it's okay to entertain those ideas on the one hand, while using the other hand to try to slap China for doing the exact same thing.

As security researcher Matthew Green rightly points out, "someday, US officials will look back and realize how much global damage they've enabled with their silly requests for key escrow." But that day is apparently not today. The administration keeps bleating on and on about how China is a massive cybersecurity "threat" out there, and then hands the country this massive gift by having a kneejerk reaction to better encryption that protects American citizens.

Filed Under: backdoors, china, encryption, eric holder, jim comey, michael froman, president obama, xi jinping
Companies: apple, google